The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor [214]
The barber began clipping his hair. A peculiar expression of disdain had come over his face at the mention of the name. “Tonight it’s a beauty contest,” he said, “tomorrow night it’s a band concert, Thursday afternoon it’s a big parade with Miss…”
“Did you or didn’t you know Singleton?” Calhoun interrupted.
“Known him well,” the barber said and shut his mouth.
A tremor went through the boy as he realized that Singleton had probably sat in the chair he himself was now sitting in. He searched his face in the mirror desperately for its hidden likeness to the man. Slowly he saw it appear, a secret message brought to light by the heat of his feelings. “Did he patronize your shop?” he asked and held his breath for the answer.
“Him and me was related by marriage,” the barber said indignantly, “but he never come in here. He was too big a skinflint to have his hair cut. He cut his own.”
“An unpardonable crime,” Calhoun said in a high voice.
“His second cousin married my sister-in-law,” the barber said, “but he never known me on the street. Pass him as close as I am to you and he’d keep going. Kept his eye on the ground all the time like he was following a bug.”
“Preoccupied,” the boy muttered. “He doubtless didn’t know you were on the street.”
“He known it,” the barber said and his mouth curled unpleasantly. “He known it. I clip hair and he clipped coupons and that was that. I clip hair,” he repeated as if this sentence had a particularly satisfying ring to his ears, “and he clipped coupons.”
The typical have-not psychology, Calhoun thought. “Was the Singleton family once wealthy?” he asked.
“It wasn’t but half of him Singleton,” the barber said, “and the Singleton’s claimed there wasn’t none of him Singleton. One of the Singleton girls gone off on a nine-months vacation and come back with him. Then they all died off and left him their money. It’s no telling what the other half of him is. Something foreign I would judge.” His tone insinuated more.
“I begin to get the picture,” Calhoun said.
“He ain’t clipping no coupons now,” said the barber.
“No,” Calhoun said and his voice rose, “now he’s suffering. He’s the scapegoat. He’s laden with the sins of the community. Sacrificed for the guilt of others.”
The barber paused, his mouth partway open. After a moment he said in a more respectful voice, “Reverend, you got him wrong. He wasn’t a church-going man.”
The boy reddened. “I’m not a church-going man myself,” he said.
The barber seemed stopped again. He stood holding the scissors uncertainly.
“He was an individualist,” Calhoun said. “A man who would not allow himself to be pressed into the mold of his inferiors. A non-conformist. He was a man of depth living among caricatures and they finally drove him mad, unleashed all his violence on themselves. Observe,” he continued, “that they didn’t try him. They simply had him committed at once to Quincy. Why? Because,” he said, “a trial would have brought out his essential innocence and the real guilt of the community.”
The barber’s face lightened. “You’re a lawyer, ain’t you?” he asked.
“No,” the boy said sullenly. “I’m a writer.”
“Ohhh,” the barber murmured. “I known it must be something like that.” After a moment he said, “What you written?”
“He never married?” Calhoun went on rudely. “He lived alone in the Singleton place in the country?”
“What there was of it,” the barber said. “He wouldn’t have spent a nickel to keep it from falling down and no woman wouldn’t have had him. That was the one thing he always had to pay for,” he said and made a vulgar noise in his cheek.
“You know because you were always there,” the boy said, barely able to control his disgust for this bigot.
“Naw,” the barber said, “it was just common knowledge. I clip hair,” he said, “but I don’t live like a hog. I got plumbing in my house and a refrigerator that spits ice cube’s into my wife’s hand.”
“He was not a materialist,” Calhoun said. “There were things that meant more to him than plumbing. Independence, for instance.”
“Ha,” the barber snorted.